Data Architect

Job Role: Data Architect

Location: Guildford, UK

Job Type: Contract / FTC (6 months duration)

Possess 15 plus years of work experience at a reputable Data & AI services firm.

Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, with a flair for compelling storytelling.

Lead the end-to-end architectural design for the enterprise data and analytics platform across Azure.

Design scalable data ingestion, transformation, and orchestration solutions using Azure Data Factory (ADF) and Databricks.

Collaborate closely with the UK Data Science team to understand analytical requirements, model needs, and integration patterns for AI / ML workloads.

Develop and enforce design guardrails, governance standards, coding frameworks, and best practices across the data engineering ecosystem.

Define and establish monitoring, observability, and operational integration for data pipelines and analytical environments.

Architect integration patterns between operational systems, data platforms, machine learning pipelines, and reporting layers.

Provide subject-matter expertise in the insurance domain, guiding data modeling, business logic, and regulatory considerations.

Support the design and operationalization of AI / ML models, including data preparation, feature engineering, model deployment, and monitoring.

Partner with stakeholders across IT, Data Science, and Business teams to translate functional needs into scalable technical architectures.

Ensure all solutions adhere to enterprise security, compliance, and governance standards.

Produce high-quality architecture documents, solution designs, data flow diagrams, and technical specifications.

Develop documentation, architecture diagrams, and data flow designs for operational and governance purposes.

Engage with business and technology stakeholders, collect necessary information, comprehend client expectations, clarify details through workshops, and propose and discuss optimal solutions.

The ability to conduct reporting, visualisation and analytics landscape assessments and rationalise portfolios for tools or platforms. You should be able to provide solutions for modernising, migrating, and integrating applications on cloud, using industry best practices.

Work closely with the pre-sales, account, and sales teams, providing support throughout all phases of Data & AI deal pursuits and expand existing projects.

Possess a Bachelor or master s degree in IT, Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or Decision Sciences.

Drive meaningful customer conversations and achieve positive business outcomes.

Proven experience as a Technical Architect, Data Architect, or Lead Data Engineer in large enterprise environments.

Strong knowledge of insurance domain processes, including policy, claims, underwriting, pricing, risk, and regulatory reporting.

Hands-on expertise with:

• Azure Data Factory (ADF) for pipeline orchestration
• Databricks (PySpark, Delta Lake, MLflow) for data engineering and ML integration
• Azure ecosystem (Key Vault, Data Lake, Synapse, Functions, Logic Apps)

Strong understanding of AI / ML lifecycle, model operationalization, and integration with enterprise data platforms.

Experience creating architecture standards, guardrails, governance frameworks, and engineering best practices.

Deep technical knowledge of data architecture, integration patterns, CI / CD for data, pipeline monitoring, and data quality frameworks.

Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, particularly with Data Science teams and business leaders.

Strong documentation and solutioning skills, capable of producing high-quality architectural blueprints.

Strong understanding of data governance, metadata management, and data lineage.

Proficiency in SQL for advanced data modelling, optimization, and validation.

Excellent ability to translate business requirements into technical designs.

Strong problem-solving and analytical thinking skills.

Understanding of the Agile methodology for development and execution.

Maintains an active learning approach, staying current with industry trends, and applying these insights to develop solutions, initiate new projects, and shape capability roadmaps.

Contribute to the development of solutions and automation accelerators and mentor emerging Data & AI talent.

Adept at recruiting top-tier Data & AI practitioners.

Experience with Microsoft Fabric, Databricks Unity Catalog, or Snowflake.

Familiarity with ML Ops, model performance monitoring, and responsible AI frameworks.

Cloud certification (e.g., Azure Solutions Architect, Databricks, or equivalent).

Experience with Power BI or semantic model design is beneficial.

Exposure to data governance, metadata management, and master data management (MDM).